Some 500,000 UK children at risk to smoking

MOSCOW: More than half a million children in the United Kingdom will die from smoking related diseases if measures curbing the lure of cigarettes are not taken, Cancer Research UK said Friday. “Our latest calculations reveal the appallingly high number of lives that will be lost unless we move faster to reduce the lethal impact of tobacco,” Sarah Woolnough, the charity’s executive director, said in a press release. According to current smoking rate-based figures released earlier in the day, Cancer Research UK assessed that 500,000 young adults will die from smoking-related diseases. The data was derived from the current population of Britons aged 16 and younger, which stands at 12 million. By the time they reach young adulthood, 2.7 million are projected to become addicted to smoking. Woolnough lauded the UK government’s efforts to stem the appeal of smoking among its younger population by forcing tobacco manufacturers to adopt plain packaging. The plain packaging vote is expected to come ahead of the May 7 parliamentary elections and, if successful, may come into force as early as next spring. In turn, the tobacco industry threatened legal action should the UK government adopt rules forcing it to make cigarettes less attractive for young British consumers. According to Cancer Research UK, the plain packaging project is modeled after Australia, which has seen a 15-percent downturn in smoking since the plain packaging law was adopted there in 2012.